Bobby Knight’s sense of indignation appears conveniently reserved for those not of his fraternity.
When it comes to the likes of Buzz Williams and Steve Alford crisscrossing the globe from season-to-season, traveling the landscape from program to program, all in the name of greener pastures, Knight sits idly by, not so much as muttering a single symbol of repudiation.
Not so where the Jabari Parker’s and Andrew Wiggins of the world are concerned. The much celebrated coach lambasted the whole game of the one-and-done collegiate athlete that could make both teens multi-millionaires by the start of summer as yet another cruel example of how the NBA has “raped” the college hoops universe world that’s turned him into such an everlasting figure.
Granted, the man who once infamously told a reporter of the act of rape if it is “inevitable, relax and enjoy it” might have a different interpretation of the evil depths associated with the word than most others, surely even he can’t profess to believing the world of college hoops remains a pure and pristine environment.
But there stood The General on Tuesday, unapologetically telling the host of ESPN’s the Mike and Mike radio show that “If I were involved with the NBA I wouldn’t want a 19-year-old or a 20-year-old kid, to bring into all the travel and all the problems that exist in the NBA. I would want a much more mature kid. I would want a kid that maybe I’ve been watching on another team and now he’s 21, 22 years old instead of 18 or 19, and I might trade for that kid.”
Lost in all Knight’s twisted ranting is the fact the Jabari Parker and Andrew Wiggins of the world do much of the same traveling and face many of the same problems as the big-time college athletes as they would as pros.
But, as always, money talks, and in 2013, the NCAA netted $681 million of its $913 million in revenues from a broadcast deal with Turner which saw the overwhelming bulk of its ratings reach a crescendo come tournament time, more than explaining why Knight and lifers like him will always feel a need to protect the institution that has made them into the well-to-do beings they now lord over their industries as.
Bob Knight took his first college coaching job at West Point at 24-years-old, putting him on a fast track to a career that spanned some four decades, roughly three times the length of any pro career either Parker or Wiggins can plan for in even their highlight case scenario.
For either of them, or anyone remotely gifted as they are, to want linger in school just because career coaches like Knight feel it’s what best for them instead of getting a jumpstart on what are widely short-lived careers is as impractical as it is imprudent.
After all, when is the last time you heard of any pro athlete carving out a 40-year career for themselves similar to what The General did?
